CARE Hosts its Final Panel of the Semester

Ceione Pafford
Tue, 23 Apr 2019 19:17:03 +0000
Campus

Guest Panelist LaKisha Simmons, author of Crescent City Girls: The Lives of Young Black Women in Segregated New Orleans (UNC Press, 2015)
Image courtesy of: University of Michigan

The final panel of the academic year for the Conversations About Research Ethics, or CARE, will be taking place this Tuesday. The panel will focus on the ethical questions and challenges surrounding the role of the researcher and will ask questions about “The Researcher as Advocate?”

This is a topic that comes up a lot in certain fields of work because it could, to some, potentially discredit or show bias within the research, Don Hubin, director of the center for ethics and human values, said.

“So you go into a field of research because you care about it and as you do more research you become more invested in your findings that you become an advocate. But with that it might undermine your research,” Hubin said.

Panelists for the event will include LaKisha Simmons, assistant professor of history and women’s studies at the University of Michigan and award-winning author, Jesse Kweik, associate professor in the department of microbiology and Jeremy Bruskotter, professor at the school of environment and natural resources.

When putting this panel together Dana Howard, coordinator of the CARE program, followed the same formula for the entire semester.

“We bring in one external speaker and then we bring in two speakers from Ohio State from different disciplines that have thought about these issues but haven’t necessarily published anything about the issue,” she said. “It’s almost fruitful to have people coming from different disciplines to come together and talk about these issues.”

This will be the fourth panel for CARE this year, which began hosting these events early this semester. ?The program will look to host more panels in the upcoming fall semester as well.

“We only started this semester, but its been so great to have these discussions as a community,” Howard said. “For me, it has been interesting to hear others talk about the ethical challenges that happen every day in research.”?

The panel, The Researcher as Advocate?, will begin Tuesday, April 23, 2019, at the STEAM Factory, 400 W. Rich St. starting at 4 p.m.

“It’s been a great year so far and I’m very happy with the program because we’ll be able to use these panels for classes as a resource for students,” Hubin said. “Not only that, but just the overall quality of the discussions have been great and with funding being authorized into next year, there are many topics we will be looking to discuss.”